Here’s the demise of department stores and the rise of nonstore sales in pictures.
Nonstore sales surged past spending on food and drinking in March of 2020 and never looked back.
Nonstore sales are now poised to top spending on motor vehicles and parts, possibly as soon as next month.
Let’s step back and see how we got here.
Advance Retail Sales Select Categories Millions of Dollars
Select Categories Percent of Total Advance Retail Sales
Nonstore Sales Percent
I calculate the nonstore sales percentage two ways. The first is straight up. That’s 18.17 percent up from 3.20 percent in January 1992.
Second I exclude things you cannot or usually do not buy online.
You can, but usually don’t, buy cars online (and those might not get recorded properly anyway). A small percentage of grocery store sales are made online, but again this isn’t typical, and I doubt they would be properly recorded.
Other than buying a gas card online, you certainly don’t order gasoline online and have it delivered.
My exclusion percentage subtracts out all of those items. Of the items that remain, 36.37 percent of sales are online, topping the Covid spike high.
Reflections on Department Store Sales
The department store percent of total retail sales fell from 8.88 percent in January of 1992 to 1.47 percent in march of 2025.
The BLS stopped reporting department store sales in April of 2025.
If all the department stores all closed tomorrow, would anyone but the employees care? What’s the limit? Is there one?
Take It to the Limit
For more on retail sales including real inflation-adjusted sales, please see Retail Sales Up 0.5 Percent in April but Inflation-Adjusted Sales Decline
Retail sales look strong in April but it’s all a mirage of inflation.
The second chart in this post is nothing but a mirage of inflation. Click for details.
Everyone here is going to laugh at me. I LOVE THE EAGLES. I cannot get enough of those “tight” harmonies. My band plays “Covers” of the Eagles and some of them are Simply IMPOSSIBLE to emulate it is for two reasons: 1) One of our Harmony, sometimes ME, cannot “hear the harmony.” I sing mostly LEAD. 2) The guitar work, esp the cool stuff by Walsh, is hard to copy. Those guys were REALLY talented!
I was walking the dog a few months ago when I saw a car pull partway into a neighbor’s driveway. The driver brought a styrofoam cup to the front door, rang the doorbell, and snapped a picture. I asked the driver what he just delivered to the house. He said it was a cup of coffee. I just shook my head and thought to myself…”We’re doomed”
meanwhile: The Chief Justice and His Wife Took $20 Million From Firms He Rules On. I’m Filing for His Disbarment Today.And you can too.
https://cmarmitage.substack.com/p/the-chief-justice-and-his-wife-took
He wouldn’t be there in the first place if he wasn’t. ‘blackmailable’.
“If all the department stores all closed tomorrow, would anyone but the employees care?”
They are called malls now and weapon strapped elderly use them as free gyms.
When online shopping became a thing, I started ordering everything online because if you ordered from out-of-state you didn’t have to pay sales tax. I think that is how Amazon grew so large at the beginning. I ordered TVs, gun safes, computers, and every big expensive item I could to avoid sales tax and free shipping. That gun safe weighed 700 lbs and was delivered free. The same vendor wanted $800 delivery fee if I ordered direct. Avoided delivery fee and taxes, those were the good old days.
Sadly, they started collecting sales tax a few years after but it was great while it lasted.
I order almost everything online including some groceries (non-perishable stuff). I only go to the grocery store for things I don’t want sitting in a delivery car all day long (milk, meat, eggs, veggies, fruits). On occasion, some of the items deliver to my door are hot to the touch which means they’ve been in the car all day long and I’m the last delivery.
The last time I went to a retail store they ad-bombed me with credit card sign up offers, surveys, broken self-check out register, and clueless clerk, no thanks.
We solved the Sales Tax problem. Moved to the AWFUL CALIFORNIA ALTERNATIVE: Oregon. This state is so Liberal that eventually we will have to move again. Luckily, we are RV-ERS full-timing in a Diesel Bus. FUEL is gonna kill us. My Prevost has a 200 Gallon Diesel Fuel Tank. 7mpg.
EVERY 7 miles, we pay $7 or more. That is a buck a mile.
Only 20 years ago, we paid 99 cents for Diesel outside of Reno (I think, it was in the desert).
No cost returns, that was the ticket. I went to Dick’s to try on some tennis shoes, and then bought the model I liked from an online tennis store at a significant discount. No different than going to Macy’s, but buying the item at Gimbels who had better pricing, really.
I buy stuff from Amazon, typically clothes manufactured in China. I recently bought 2 exercise T shirts, $9.99 each, 100% polyester. The Chinese company is trying to establish their brand, and good on them for that. I could have purchased a similar shirt with a Nike logo for a considerable amount more, but why, when it is manufactured in China, possibly by the same company.
I do my Amazon returns at a local Staples. The fellow behind the counter showed me the stacked boxes of returns for a half day – unbelievable!
Cosumption (C) is part of GDP. Not really sure why.
Gimbels….taking me back
How about B. Altman’s
Miracle on 34th Street.
See, but you needed the dicks there to physically confirm you like the shoe
I hate buying clothes online and doing the hassle of returns if they don’t fit. Half the fun of shopping is the immediacy, clothes being something you can usually immediately enjoy (wear) after purchase.
It’s too many people ducked into phones. In only 30 and I feel like a geezer barking at the clouds, but the online mind disease is crazy.
When amazon is the only game in town and deglobalization has made us all the poorer, then…
Walmart put tons of small local stores out of business since it began and became the only choice for local retail in most areas of the country.
They came in, killed the competition, then raised prices. Amazon is on track to become the next “Walmart” and people will have no choice but to order from them if they want anything.
So ironically, I’m rooting for Walmart to prevent Amazon from becoming a monopoly in the online retail business. No other company is big enough to challenge Amazon.
Maybe Target will come up with a new bathroom strategy.
Costco is still the Big Box supremo.
Plenty of stuff there that is higher quality than wallyworld and cheaper than amazon.
My brother’s worked in retail a long time, he says any “straight” retail is long gone. In every strip mall suburb in aamerica, it’s filled with service shops masquerading as retail. Or dumb things that people want to look at before they ship. Appliances, auto parts, TVs
Dollar stores.
I buy almost everything online because:
Many of the items I buy are not available at retail stores near me – or not even an hour drive away. I live close to NYC.I don’t have the time to get in my car, drive somewhere, park, buy something, etc. I can order online in a minute or two. I work all day long and can’t be taking time off of work even if the items are for my work.Online pricing is almost always better.Many of the retail stores I used to buy at are gone – and again, I live near NYC in one of the most densely populated parts of NJ.If something doesn’t meet expectations, returning is pretty easy, usually.Retail service has gotten poor on average. And often, they want a tip.Amazon gets a lot of business from me, but they aren’t as good as they used to be. Prime subscription often doesn’t mean that you get the product in a day or two. It can take many days to get it. Often, products are shipped through stores that just sell on the Amazon website but ship from somewhere else. Sometimes from China. Amazon pricing is usually good but not always. You have to be careful now. You can sometimes find a better item if you don’t take one of their first options. A week ago, I bought some Q-Tips. The top choice on Amazon cost twice as much as one with more Q-Tips down lower in their search.
My girlfriend does most of the food shopping. She has started ordering food often online. At first, I thought it was crazy to spend extra on home delivery, but then I realized that when she goes to the store, she *always* comes out with much more than her original plan. By ordering online, she just buys what she wants without being tempted to buy things she sees while walking down the aisle.
Amazon prime and Walmart both offer discounts for the elderly and some social programs.
Prime advantage is “free tv” BUT I don’t do ads. So what once was 2.99 is now 4.99 no ads. They also offer discounts on some channels or inexpensive channels for.99 plus tax. That would be old tv series and films.
Prime is nice for foods one can not find anywhere else. It had been good for bilk canned goods but now can size has shrunk and prices risen.
Pre-order book discount is good and free shipping on almost anything while normally it is on 25.00.
Walmart assist is 10% discount on total order,ten cents discount on gas and free choice of either peacock or Paramount which may be switched at anytime.
Same day delivery is nice and you can either tip or not. I don’t find it worthwhile to purchase things that bruise but have no problem with bananas nor four or five tomatoes.
Prime clothing is a toss up usually based on Asian male body types. If I wanted to purchase sweats by waist the length would be too long. But stretchy sweats by length fit the waist well. Bulk socks are cool.
Amazon daily discounts are useless. Now they are the same items nearly everyday and rotate back every other month. Sometimes you get lucky and a seller will dump stock for under half price. I picked up four pairs of Pumas just before Christmas.
Walmart may carry some books that Amazon does but canned foods are the same price. Frozen foods and fruits are pretty fair at Walmart.
When I ran out of room with Amazon canned goods I switched to the frozen. I’m not a fan of frozen because of something like a large CME.
Canned goods last a good long time.
Amazon does not have FAT OBESE models for their clothing despite basically running 3x or 5x in size. Same with exercise equipment. Overly defined muscles.
Somewhere on Youtube is a video about Amazon product placement pushing sponsored items to the top of a search, Walmart does the same. no tip like same day delivery.
A Walmart trick is order something and have it shipped three days later.
That’s fascinating, I live in suburbia, and I try to shop online as little as possible as an excuse to get out of my house
The horror of living in a walkable city! If it ain’t like good ole US of A it must be socialist or something like that! Bomb it!
Getting stuff delivered cuts into miles driven, so there’s a bit of a feedback loop there.